Re: [Lingo] British English

[CL <az.4tlug@example.com>]

On 02/03/2011 01:18 AM, Josh Glover wrote:
> On 2 February 2011 15:33, CL<az.4tlug@example.com>  wrote:

>> insisted that the word "plough" should have
> > been spelled "plow" and counted it wrong.
>
> Having grown up a) reading mainly English authors (think Tolkien,
> Susan Cooper, Beatrix Potter, C.S. Lewis, et al.) and b) in home
> school until grade 5, I had a similar experience with words like
> neighbourhood. :(

My grandmother had an elder brother who was headmaster of a private 
school somewhere in the South of England.  She decided that I needed a 
"proper" education and asked him to send me copies what his boys were 
reading. Twice a year we'd receive a crate of British schoolbooks 
allegedly appropriate to my grade in US school along with a pile of 
"bonus" materials.  I think they must have cleaned out the entire 
left-over book selection from the Twenties through the mid-Fifties and 
sent it all to me.  Lots of stuff about bathing in cold water, the joys 
of physical exercise, and playing lots of cricket and rugger ... plus 
another set of insults and aphorisms that went 'way over the heads of 
the local kids.

Some of the other stuff made the "Flashman" series a lot more fun to 
read ... and I was fortunate to have had a ninth-grade English teacher 
who took me aside and said "Either spell it one way or the other.  I 
don't care which.  Just pick one way to spell and stick with it."

--
CL